


Home is where pieces of the heart are...

by Mercenary



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Love, M/M, Post Worlds, Viktuuri Big Bang 2017, living in St Petersburg, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 04:11:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11524293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercenary/pseuds/Mercenary
Summary: St Petersburg was where a home was being built with Victor.  Yuuri just couldn’t understand, why when his heart should soar to reach the stars, his mind had him plummeting into the depths of misery.  Night could fall and the sun could rise and if he closed his eyes the same things haunted him.  Yuuri had forgotten that he doesn’t need to fight alone.Luckily, Victor is always there to remind him.





	Home is where pieces of the heart are...

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for Viktuuri Reverse Bang with the amazing art of @captain-valhalla of tumblr.

 

  
  
**_Home is where pieces of the heart are_ **

 

The night sky visible through the window was full of dark, tumultuous, ragged clouds. Threatening a continuation of the earlier downpour of heavy, torrential rain. Yuuri almost fancied he could give how long it had started, right down to a split second, as he had been focusing on that and nothing more for what seemed  like hours.  

As the clock on his cell phone inched forward painfully slow. That was to him, the only proof that the sun would rise and usher in the light of a new day.  

Only the soft sound of Victor’s sleeping breaths, just audible over the interspersed snores and whines of Makkachin, kept Yuuri still and in their bed. A puddle of drool marked the cover of the book that Victor had fallen asleep reading.  

His thick-framed reading glasses had been tossed on the bedside table. Victor looked young and carefree in his sleep, not even the slightest hint of the restlessness that haunted Yuuri.  Gazing at him was almost like seeing a real life version of the princess in Sleeping Beauty,  the Disney film, Yuuri thought, as he reached back to the memories of watching it with Yuuko, Takeshi and the triplets.

Yuuko had made some annoyed mutterings directed towards the triplets as she turned it off close to the end, right about when the triplets, without an ounce of shame, replayed the 2009 Japanese Nationals Free Skate on Yuuko’s iPad.  

They were the biggest skating groupies that Yuuri had ever met.

The act of thinking of Hasetsu brought an ache to his chest.  He cast his mind back through his old haunts, the runs through town and rare adventures into the city with Victor.  A far too brief year of being home, bathing in the comfort of familiar love and support of friends and family, it  hadn’t been enough. The gulls that brayed away in the distance were not quite the same as those back home.

The city of St Petersburg was a grand mix of buildings both grand and slum-like. Tall, foreboding buildings that loomed so high and grey they made Yuuri feel small and insignificant.  Noisy engines that roared and rumbled from the roads, not quite drowning out the noise of enraged drivers, who cursed and made violent gestures at one another.

Even the grand architecture, of history and new, couldn’t distract his attention from the noise.

On sunny days, there were buildings that shone as if the light of the heavens were upon them. Curves and detail to stone and metal that swept his breath away. It was not hard to compare the grandness of the place,  to the errant son that the city had welcomed back when Victor returned.  Victor, tall and lean, with the backdrop of those buildings, seemed to shine as radiantly as even the grandest of them all. He still shone brighter than any of them.

There were never days when the temperatures rose to scorch both the earth and flesh. St Petersburg was not Japan and never grew warm even during the height of its summer in July.

St Petersburg had Victor, radiant and happy,  and so it ought to feel like home to Yuuri.   

So why did Yuuri feel as he did?

Irritation filled him sometimes.  Because why couldn’t Victor understand? Accept that Yuuri was mentally weak and that nothing would change his routine of plummeting when his anxiety overwhelmed him. All of Victor’s efforts were being wasted. Yuuri should never have come to St Petersburg to train with Victor.

Except, even as he thought those terrible things, they didn’t stick quite so harshly as they once would have.

It had been when Yuri Plisetsky had commanded the ice at Barcelona. A moment that made something indescribable burn inside of his chest.  Emotions that reignited his yearning to fight it out on the ice at least once more.  His earned silver had succeeded in leaving him wanting for the gold.

So Yuuri was eager for the gleam of gold that the younger Yuri had claimed by a hairsbreadth. To take to the ice and keep on forcing Yuri to evolve. Even more than that, he wanted to show Victor every last inch of his love by giving it his all on the ice.

Victor was the only silver that Yuuri wanted to hold onto. 

Yuuri had remembered in that instant the fact that he hated losing.  Yuuri Katsuki wanted to win. But how could he win when mere dreams brought him into wakefulness sobbing? So while Victor slept, Yuuri dug his nails into his own palms, biding time until he could slip from the covers in order to pound the streets.

Hours seemed to pass before the time displayed on his  phone hit 0430.  Not a single hint of any encroaching light from the rise of the sun visible through the window.  He took his time easing himself out of their bed.  

He felt nauseous and uncomfortable as he slipped out of his bedclothes.  Rather than rustle through drawers and risk waking up Victor,he grabbed whatever was piled up on the ottoman, and tiptoed out of their bedroom.  He threw a lingering glance over his shoulder at his sleeping fiance.

_ Hopefully, _ he thought. V _ ictor wouldn’t even know that he had gone out.   _

* * *

 

A silent promise was made to return before Victor woke up.

His trainers slapped too hard against the pavement; he knew it wasn’t good for his knees. Yuuri kept on running anyway, relishing the cleansing burn that swept his mind clean.  Strands of hair flew over his eyes, so he ducked his head forward and kept on running.  St Petersburg was asleep as dawn had yet to arrive - and so far, Yuuri had yet to pass another person. 

Slippery, muddied ground tried to throw him off balance.  The Japanese man didn’t let it stop him as he pushed on forwards. Trusting in both his balance and the grip of his expensive soles to keep him upright.

Yuuri was forced to make a brief diversion to avoid a possible collision with a hissing ginger cat. Making the quick detour around a streetlamp, meandering about off his running route for a few minutes; until the sound of barking from a nearby apartment filtered through to the street, from an open window.  

_ Not all of St Petersburg was asleep…  _ Yuuri mused.  Makkachin had been fast asleep, or he would have brought the poodle with him, and despite his desire for solitude, it would have been nice to have Makka out with him.

A bolt of adrenaline shot through him, coming out of nowhere. Yuuri picked up his pace so that he removed himself from the vicinity.  He could also make out the harsh Russian cursing, which traveled above the racket of the barking.  

Yuuri kept on running, savouring the tell tale signs of exertion. Letting years of training take over his breathing for him.  The churning in his stomach didn’t seem as bad now. So Yuuri kept on running, letting the details of his surroundings blur, as he looked only dead ahead of him.

The darkness before dawn was a sombre period for St Petersburg.  

One day. One day, one day soon, he wished to stop feeling this heavy weight on his shoulders.  A constant pressure pressing down on him each day. Sapping away at all the love and happiness that existed in the life he shared with Victor in St Petersburg.  

It wasn’t rational; his mental weakness made no sense, and he hated it. Yuuri skidded to a halt, his breathing heavy, leaning forward with his hands resting on his thighs. His fingers curled into the palm of his hand.   

Ever present was the instinctive urge to take deep, panting breaths.  Or the foolish instinct to just stand on the street with his body hunched over.  His good sense won out at last, and the twenty-four-year-old pushed forwards with a less than brisk walk.  Yuuri took measure of his aching legs with each step he took.

The twinges in his thighs were normal after such a long run, so Yuuri breathed out in relief, now cognisant of the fact that his lack of stretching earlier had been dangerous, especially so for a competitive athlete nearing his mid-twenties.  In a physically intensive  discipline like figure skating,  no muscle ever really went neglected when on the ice.  Everything always ached equally afterwards.

* * *

 

  
The rink never opened before 5am. Paperwork, mountains of it, were required to make arrangements for out of hours use.  Victor had complained about how those rules had only been put in place when he turned twenty. Yakov had shared that it had been put in place because of Victor.  

When he reached the rink at 5.45am, he hadn’t expected to see Victor waiting outside of it.  Dressed for the chill mornings of St Petersburg whilst he stood with two travel mugs of tea. Steam rising from the lids into the cool air.  

“Go get a shower in the rink, Yuuri,”  Victor instructed, passing a travel mug to him. “Then you can eat some breakfast before you even think about doing figures.”  

It was difficult to blink when his eyelids wanted to remain drooped down but he still managed to do it.  Completely speechless as Victor ushered him through the automatic doors. No questions of Yuuri’s whereabouts asked.  

The Sports Champion Club building was still fairly empty when they entered.  Yuuri sipped at his tea as he wondered if Victor would take pity on him and let him go home to sleep.  As wistful as he was, not even in his tired state did he believe Victor would go easy on him.

Victor quickly ensured that belief was confirmed when he pushed Yuuri into the men's changing room.

The Japanese man headed straight for the bench. Casting one last longing gaze at the door, he placed his tea down, before seating himself on the bench just as he let out a wide yawn.

His head fell forward, chin resting on his chest as it took too much effort to hold it up.  Yuuri struggled to keep his drooping eyes open as Victor unbuttoned his long black coat, revealing training clothes beneath. Usually, this was a moment Yuuri would be happy to savour, his eyes tracing his fiance’s exposed collarbones, or the way his broad shoulders filled out his top. He enjoyed taking the time to admire the base physical beauty that was Victor Nikiforov.

Victor was more than the sum of his looks and his skating. But that did not mean that Yuuri could not intently devour the sheer physicality of his beautiful form and movements. Not for an instant could he ever fathom tiring of waking up each day to this love.

Yuuri closed his eyes. _ It’s stupid _ , he thought. That he allowed himself to be  overwhelmed with such an unrelenting dread. But it wasn't as if his struggles with his anxiety over the years had ever made much sense. He spent a lot of time terrified of failure and spent too much time thinking of the worst possible outcomes.  It wasn’t as if Yuuri didn’t know that he let his negativity get the better of him.

_ I’m sorry that I’m not fixed…  _ Was  all Yuuri could think, watching Victor stretch so the black training top was tugged halfway up his navel, and offered a tantalizing peek of his pale, toned belly. His gaze then flicked back to the silver haired man’s face.  He took in Victor’s face, now alight with a bright smile, of the kind that never failed to bring a small flicker of warmth to Yuuri’s chest.

“Yuuri!” Victor called out,  eyes crinkling as he smiled even wider. “Are you feeling better? Did your run this morning help you clear your head?”

Yuuri blinked. “Ah, Victor, how did-”

“You always go for an early morning run when you can’t get back to sleep,"  Victor commented, his smile losing a fraction of the close to blinding voltage. "You've been doing it quite a lot as of late."

Yuuri shifted on the changing room bench, feeling uncomfortable at being put on the spot in such a casual way.  Victor had noticed that? Yuuri bit the inner flesh of his cheek, trying hard to control the embarrassed blush of pink that threatened to creep onto his face, regardless of his wish to deny the truth of what Victor had said.

Yuuri wasn’t so inept with conversation not to see that this was an opening to explain.  He could be honest and share everything had been weighing on him.  Confide to Victor of the nightmares, fears and uneasiness that had been gradually growing stronger in the past weeks.

He could. Yuuri really should. Yet, he didn't.

“But Yuu-uu-ri!!!”  Victor scolded, wagging a single finger. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t go without Makkachin or me?”

For the second time, the dark haired Japanese man shifted on the bench  and let his head hang downward in shame. He had been hoping that Victor would have forgotten.  

Undeniably, from the sharp warning glint in Victor’s eyes,  there would be no escaping his wrath on the ice that day.  Training would launch with intensive off-ice conditioning.

Despite the controlled temperature in the training room, Yuuri felt a cold shiver run down his spine.  By the time the morning session was over, he would be lucky to not be fast asleep on the ice, as he could already tell that Victor would have no compunctions in running him ragged.

Behind the genial smile,  the Japanese man knew existed a sadist coach. Training schedules existed for a reason, even throughout the off-season, because of the approaching ice shows.

If Yuuri had been thinking clearly he would never have broken the training agreement. And it wasn’t as if his coach would ever push him too hard and risk exhausting him to the point of injury.  He just wouldn’t allow Yuuri to take it easy as pushing Yuuri was how Victor showed his love.

They both moved towards the gym, as he prepared himself for a long day.  The Sports Champion Club was dimly lit throughout the wide corridors.  Neither of them said a word to one another, though. Yuuri felt some of the tension leave his body when Victor reached out and grasped his hand firmly.   

“Please don’t go out alone that early, Yuuri,”  Victor finally said, breaking the silence between them.  He squeezed Yuuri’s hand lightly. “St Petersburg isn’t as safe as Hasetsu.  And I’ve not been very good in showing you around because of the Ice Show.  You were gone before five.”

_ Meaning that he hadn’t left early for the rink,  _  Yuuri thought.  _ And Victor wouldn’t even jog without Makkachin past the daylight hours.   _ As he peered up at Victor, he could now tell  that his fiance must’ve remained awake, waiting for Yuuri to come home safe and sound.  

“Okay.”  Yuuri said.

A much warmer smile was the reply Victor rewarded him with.

* * *

 

By early afternoon, he was both mentally and physically exhausted from his disturbed night that had preceded training .  When he left the rink a little after 1pm, Yuuri dreaded trying to force himself to move enough to get home, even if he knew Makkachin was due a walk as well. 

With arms limp against his sides, he couldn’t stop himself from groaning.  Trying very hard to not watch Victor walk with an long and energetic stride.  Far to his left was a long, wide bench that was inviting enough to make Yuuri reconsider how badly he wanted to fall into bed.  

As if sensing the mental struggle taking place, the energetic 28 year old grabbed Yuuri by his right hand and pulled him along without making a single comment about how unlike himself Yuuri was today.  

Better than that, he half-carried Yuuri to their apartment.  Helped him out of his workout gear and straight into their bed.  Yuuri mumbled a thank you as the curtains shut in tandem to his drooping eyelids.

A terrible dream of fear and of loss had struck again. Yuuri’s eyes snapped open, taking in his dark surroundings.  

_ This was their bedroom in St Petersburg,  _ he thought.  _ It was all another terrible dream. _  Yuuri allowed himself to let relief take over. He let his breathing slow gradually, and for his eyes to scour every visible inch of Victor.

The man in question was alive and well beside Yuuri. Victor lay on his stomach, one arm flung above his head, and his other stretched out towards Yuuri.  And he was clearly fast asleep. For the  soft reassuring rhythm of his breathing was quickly a balm to Yuuri’s panic.  He stared at him, letting the smooth skin of the exposed back mesmerise him, even if he couldn’t make out much.

In the darkness, without his glasses, there was not much he could make out, but he knew Victor’s back was unscarred and speckled with pale freckles from the previous summer in Hasetsu.  

There was grumbling in the pipework of the apartment below, and there was the rustle of wind through the curtains. Those were the things that pulled his concentration away from Victor and turned his focus back to himself.  He noticed different things about himself,  such as how his mouth tasted sour,  a terrible mix of pickled plum and star anise, that made his face scrunch up.

It turned his focus back to why he found himself awake. For a moment, he thought that he had somehow managed to sleep through the entire afternoon. Except he could see light sneak through a crack in the curtains now that he was coming to awareness.  When he glanced at his flashing phone :  it was 2.20pm.  

Perhaps it was the days of broken sleep. Or the relentless nightmares that even now haunted his days. They grew worse when they should fade. Turned his rationality into something that rejected the sensible possibilities that crossed his mind. Even now when he knew he was awake and that Victor was well… he was still afraid.  This wasn’t Hasetsu where he could retreat to a hot spring to cleanse his body and mind. There was no  escape to the quiet beaches where he had spent hours upon hours sitting with Victor.   

Yuuri pushed himself upright, supported by his hands at either side. Fingers digging into the sheets, wrinkling the cotton within his grasp. He blinked and tried to clear his eyes of the years that threatened to blur his vision even more than being without his glasses did.  Inattentive of the moment when his sleeping fiance shifted into wakefulness.   

No questions were asked and seeing Victor look at him with such heartfelt concern just made it harder to hold back the tears.

He tried.  Yuuri really did. Until he couldn’t…

* * *

 

A slight shift of the mattress would not normally be enough to break Victor out of sleep.  From a young age he had mastered the art of sleeping deeply at any opportunity.  And normally he had no trouble falling asleep anywhere. 

If it hadn’t been his concern for Yuuri, due to his earlier behaviour, he probably would have slept on.

At the moment, all he wished for, was to remain close his troubled fiance.  

Victor didn’t speak, he just reacted, and wrapped his arms around Yuuri.  Bringing the other man’s  tear stained  face to rest against his own bare chest. One hand stroked  the younger man’s back in a soothing gesture.  

Yuuri said nothing and Victor simply lowered his head downwards,  so that his chin rested on top of the messy black hair of his fiance. Victor kept silent and he held Yuuri close.

_ Yuuri,  _ Victor thought.  _ You never have to fight alone, don’t you know that?  _  Victor wanted to know what was causing the evident sleepless nights, that had left permanent shadows beneath Yuuri’s eyes, and forced him to put distance between them again.  

When loud wretched sobs started coming from Yuuri, the force of his repressed emotions caused horrid shivers and tremors throughout the smaller man’s body. Victor could almost share the experience as Yuuri let himself go.  

Weeks of suppressed feelings escaping from the younger man. That was the moment when Victor truly grasped on how blind he had been in not realising.  Exhilarated after his comeback at Worlds, where he had succeeded in expressing his love for Yuuri on the ice…

In retrospect, it had been thoughtless, to expect a seamless move from his fiance. Victor had ignored some of the signs that now seemed obvious to the silver haired six-time World Champion.  Yuuri had finished his most exceptional season, and Victor knew it had been one that had demanded much of Yuuri in mental strength.

Meanwhile, fresh, hot, furious tears met the bare skin of his chest... Yuuri's tears.

Tears had always made him unsettled on how to react, Victor acknowledged that thought, filled with the uncomfortable realisation of just how useless he could be in times such as this.  Except this time, unlike in China, he held Yuuri in his arms as his fiance.  

There was no more uncertainty of where they stood with one another.

If only Yuuri found it easier speak to him and share his burden.  At the airport, finally being reunited after the Rostelecom Cup, was the point in time that pulled the cord of fate that bound them, tighter.  Even if the trials of Barcelona had been trying, as a test of their ability to overcome their faults, and bare their souls to one another for the first time.

They had overcome their miscommunication and insecurities before, hadn’t they? Which was the obvious answer to his own dilemma of how to respond.  Victor understood that he had to remind Yuuri that his anxiety was a part of the whole package of Yuuri Katsuki. The man Victor Nikiforov would marry one day in the near future.

"I’m here," he murmured, lips pressing down a chaste kiss to the dark mop of silken hair, “I’m not going anywhere. I won’t let you go."

A strangled sounding sob escaped the brown eyed man. Witnessing it up close had affected Victor in ways he never could have expected because for all that he was absolute in the depths of his understanding of Yuuri, there would always be more to learn and to love about him.  

“I know,” Yuuri answered, pulling away so that he could raise his eyes to look up into Victor’s.

Yuuri’s red rimmed eyes made him look fragile, his skin blotchy from his tears. But he wasn’t fragile at all, not when it mattered the most. Yuuri had displayed that many times where he was forced to be courageous enough for Victor as well.  

“Your nose turns a very cute red when you cry,” Victor commented, a tender smile on his face as he reached one hand towards the other man’s face.  He paid no heed to the ruin of his cashmere as he used the sleeve cuff to wipe snot and tears from his fiance’s face.  Thumb tracing his jaw bone with light, caressing touches.  “But I love it more when you are smiling.

A special intimate moment passed between them. Yuuri felt his resolve to remain stoic crumble, beneath Victor’s loving gaze.  Those calming blue eyes, his gentle touch and thoughtful loving words, made Yuuri want to confess everything. To fall apart like a regretful sinner seeking forgiveness and most of all he wanted Victor to grant him absolution.  

“I miss Hasetsu,” Yuuri confided, the dam breaking. “I miss home and I hate that I feel this way. Victor! I don’t want to be away from you. I don’t want to be a burden on you. But I can’t sleep at night from nightmares and worrying how it’ll hurt you that I MISS HASETSU. That I’m not okay here.”

“I cried myself to sleep in Hasetsu at first,”  the response came quick and honest, “I cuddled into Makkachin and cried all night.  Even Makka got annoyed with me - since Makka slept in with you.”  

“Why didn’t you…?” Yuuri asked, eyes widening.  Chewed upon lips parted, and his eyelids fluttered shut, then opened to focus once again on Victor as he continued to speak.  

_ How could he have missed it,  _ Yuuri wondered.   _ Never once doubting what Victor said. _

“Say that I missed St Petersburg? That even though Makka was with me, I missed Yakov yelling at me, or Yurio hissing at me every time I crossed his path at the rink… It was lonely in a strange place.”

Yuuri squeezed his eyes shut.  “When did it stop? Did it ever stop?”  

Victor didn't doubt for a second that he was also asking:  _ was Hasetsu always like this for you? _

"When you told me to just be myself,"  Victor said in response.  “I knew home was with you.”

When his face softened and his mouth turned upwards in a reassuring smile, Yuuri wanted to kiss the other man, slow and tender with no heat to it, to express with action what he knew his words couldn’t.

Home: it all came down to home, didn’t it?  No matter where he had travelled he had always felt at home on the ice.  That was why adjusting to Detroit had not felt as difficult as now.  Young and eager to leave so he could at long last meet Victor Nikiforov as an equal on the ice.  Nothing about it had felt held the sense of permanence that this move did. 

Twenty four was a completely different stage of life to eighteen.  

Yuuri had moved with a firm idea of building a life there, and living alone with his fiance.  St Petersburg, living alone with Victor, in a country where he was unable to travel without a native guide, it seemed as if it were far too much for him to handle… alone.

“St Petersburg is big,”  Yuuri said, slow and deliberate.

“And noisy, sometimes smelly and the weather is nearly always dreary,”  Victor said helpfully. “The buildings are large.  Russians are blunt. And our gulls are much ruder than those in Hasetsu.”

_ Whatever Victor was attempting to convey to Yuuri was not getting across at all _ , Yuuri thought.  _ If anything it was more confusing.  _  Victor had never been the type of coach or fiance to tell Yuuri how he should experience or understand his own difficulties or even successes. He had only ever asked to hear what Yuuri wanted to share with him.  

_ He always tries to meet me where I am,  _ Yuuri remembered.  _  And remind me that I don’t ever have to fight alone.  _ Weeks of agonising over how he felt and how it could hurt Victor forced Yuuri to feel foolish, now that he had been able to gain an outside perspective, one from Victor.  

At long last, Yuuri let out a weak chuckle.  “I was a fool for thinking I had to hide things. I suppose this is just like last year. I didn’t want you to see my mental weakness, Victor. I was too afraid to open up to you about this.  I...I was selfish because I want to keep on surprising you forever!”

“Oh, Yuuri,”  Victor said in response.  A soft smile directed at Yuuri that made the dark haired man feel as if he was the most valuable being in the world.  “You always surprise me just by loving me.”

With his heart pounding hard, it felt as if it would burst right out of his chest.  Yuuri felt only warmth as something within him broke free, lifting his mood up so that Yuuri felt like he was soaring.  At that moment, he felt as if he could deal with his anxiety. Victor wouldn’t let him fight alone.  

Anxiety like his would not just leave. His was a type that was too much a part of himself after so long.   After tonight, it could still send insidious whispers through his ears.  Such disorders took deep root inside the head. But sharing weakened the hold it would have on Yuuri.  Which was why Yuuri found it within him to give a genuine smile.

“You set my heart on fire, not once, but always,”  Victor whispered,  he pressed a chaste kiss to Yuuri’s temple, clasping Yuuri’s right hand with his own. “Around you my heart beats ever so quick. It beats for you.”

“Don’t say such weird things, Victor,” Yuuri chided, relaxing against the other man. “It makes you sound strange.”   

“I think you mean romantic,” the silver haired man replied, pressing his chest closer to the smaller, dark haired man’s back. “I love you, Yuuri Katsuki. I know you don’t need explicit confessions. I know actions mean more.  But right now I want to say these words to you: Yuuri, I want to marry you.”

“Victor,”  Yuuri paused,, a sharp breath exhaled, his brown eyes drier than before Victor had spoken.  “I now have a Nationals and Four Continents gold medal combination.”

Yuuri gnawed at his lips as he experienced new butterflies in the pit of his stomach.  It was foolish to believe that after all they had shared, that a rejection was imminent.

“Huh, I guess that means you want me as your husband, Yuuri,” Victor mused, a wide and radiant smile spreading across his face. A faint blush of pink crossing his pale cheeks as he spoke. “I want to be Victor Katsuki for the rest of our lives.”

“Huh, Katsuki?”  Yuuri blinked owlishly.  

“Yuuri, I’ve been Victor Nikiforov for all my life. It really is just a name I received at birth," he murmured, a shyness so uncharacteristic of the confident man that Yuuri saw more often than not, though, it was just another layer to the man Yuuri loved. “I’ve thought on it  a lot since Barcelona and I want to be Victor Katsuki for the rest of it.  That’s if you want me to be.”

Yuuri swallowed, a strange buzzing noise in his ears, and himself filled with  emotions he had not the wits to put a name to.

“I want us to be together, side by side, Victor.“ He reached to cup the silver haired man’s face. Victor’s warmth bleeding through to the palm of Yuuri’s hand. “For our future.”

What other response could've been more fitting? Yuuri took the look in response as a sign that their shared language of English had them in perfect sync. Unlike the many times in the past where meanings of words exchanged were ambiguous.

Victor Nikiforov loved Yuuri Katsuki even with all of his faults.  Deep down Yuuri had known that their love was no shallow, trivial fling. For their first fragile feelings had blossomed into bonsai that would withstand the test of time.

Whatever would come in their future were all things that they faced together as a partnership. Yuuri's anxieties and fears did not have the power to overcome those solid roots that their feelings had planted within them both.  

“Our future,” Victor breathed out, voice low, and his blue eyes full of tenderness when meeting Yuuri’s own.

On impulse, Yuuri reached out his free hand, caressing his thumb over the palm of his fiance’s, as he grasped it gently.  “Together.”

They were both sitting on the ridiculously sized bed. Beneath the decorative candles, and their faces coming closer to one another, and their gazes never once wavering from the other.  Not even the gravity of their earlier exchange changed the fact they both looked ridiculous with their tear-streaked faces, puffy eyes, and complete and utter lack of poise.  Yuuri let himself fall forwards against the bigger man’s chest.

Victor’s arms wrapped themselves around Yuuri. Pulled  him closer so that Yuuri could hear the slow and steady rhythm of his heartbeat.  Every rise of the chest was as comforting as a lullaby and he relaxed into the embrace.  

Basking in contentment, he lay, surrounded with love, in the arms of the man he loved.  

Home could be many places.

Hasetsu was home.

Home had once been with Phichit in Detroit.

What he also now could thoroughly understand,  with absolute certainty, was that anywhere with Victor would also be home.

 

 

  
  



End file.
